O’Shea Jackson

Review of “Cocaine Bear”

My hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee is a pretty quiet place. We have our share of crime, as any midsize city does. Most of it is usually property or drug related. There are murders as well. Back in the 1970’s, a mutilated torso was found with that murder still unsolved. In 1986, another torso was found and over the course of a few weeks, the rest of the body parts and the implements of dismemberment were discovered. An ID of the victim led to his roommates who were later convicted of the grisly crime. But in 1985, one of the most bizarre deaths in the city’s history took place on the driveway of an 85-year-old man. The body of Andrew C. Thornton II was found by the elderly homeowner on the morning of September 11. Thornton was flying packaged cocaine from Columbia into the United States. He dumped the load of drugs because the plane of overweight and having a hard time staying in the air. Thornton strapped on a parachute, and about 75 lbs. of cocaine, and jumped. The parachute malfunctioned and Thornton died on impact in the driveway of 85-year-old Fred Myers. His unpiloted plane crashed 60 miles away in the mountains of North Carolina. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured by the falling cocaine, the doomed pilot and the unoccupied aircraft. Actually, that’s not exactly true, as a dead black bear was discovered two months later. His demise was caused by a massive cocaine overdose. The bear discovered the discarded drugs and had a one-creature party. A necropsy on the bear found his stomach was stuffed to the brim with the powdered drug. The bear was taxidermied and, after a multi-decade circuitous route, is now on display in the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall in Lexington. Aside from the infrequent remembrances on the anniversary the discovery of Thornton’s body, not many would remember the events of that day or the death of a coked-up bruin. However, director Elizabeth Banks and writer Jimmy Warden want us all to remember a slightly different version in the new film “Cocaine Bear.”

Andrew C. Thornton II (Matthew Rhys) abandons his airplane after dumping his load of cocaine over northern Georgia. While jumping out, he bangs his head on the doorframe and is rendered unconscious, falling uncontrollably to his death in a driveway in Knoxville, TN. A Knoxville police detective named Bob (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) knows Thornton works for a St. Louis-based drug dealer named Syd (Ray Liotta). He also knows the drug pilots dump their loads over the Chattahoochee National Forest. He decides to travel there and try to catch Syd or his people gathering up their product. Syd sends Daveed (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.) along with Syd’s son Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) to retrieve the drugs and not get in trouble with the cartel. Nurse Sari (Keri Russell) is picking up extra shifts at the hospital, much to the annoyance of her 12-year-old daughter Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince). Dee Dee wants to see the waterfalls in the nearby Chattahoochee National Park. She skips school with her friend Henry (Christian Convery) and they walk to the park. Ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) is preparing for a visit from Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a park inspector and someone on whom she has a crush. Sari comes home after her shift and gets a phone call from the school telling her Dee Dee is absent. She quickly figures out where her daughter is going and sets off to find her. Everyone is heading into the path of a black bear that has discovered the discarded drugs, consumed a great deal of them, and is on a coke-fueled rampage.

I don’t think anyone going to see “Cocaine Bear” is expecting art. It’s a silly action/comedy/gore film about a drug-addicted bear and the death and mayhem it causes. Still, director Elizabeth Banks has managed to deliver something a bit more in the film. We get foul-mouthed kids, a mourning drug dealer, familial strife, corruption, romance and dismemberments. This mix shouldn’t work, and sometimes it doesn’t, but “Cocaine Bear” manages to be a very entertaining film.

The large ensemble cast is a diverse bunch, from cute kids to and an overworked single mom to hardened drug dealers. The group, split into subgroups as they go about their intertwining missions, are never far removed from the titular bear. It makes frequent, usually violent but sometimes also funny, appearances at regular enough intervals to keep the audience’s attention. A section of the film devoted to the search for one of the kids is split up enough with bear scenes to keep it from dragging the pace of the film to a crawl. A subplot involving one character’s dog is kept to a minimum, preventing unnecessary delays to the next scene of bear carnage. The film is structured in nice, compact segments that are neither too long nor too short.

Not everything in “Cocaine Bear” works to perfection. O’Shea Jackson, Jr.’s Daveed starts the film hard but softens over the course of the story. This doesn’t feel like an earned redemption. Working for Syd the drug kingpin feels like it should be the kind of job that could get you killed at any time, making for a personality that looks to strike the first blow and murder at the slightest provocation. Daveed, while tough, takes pity on several characters he should kill without a second thought.

Ray Liotta’s Syd also doesn’t feel like a fully thought-out character. He enlists his son, Ehrenreich’s Eddie, to go with Daveed to gather the drugs, despite Eddie leaving the family business after his wife dies. Syd should also be willing to eliminate even his own son if he’s not going to follow orders. For a film filled with violent deaths at the hands, or paws, of a bear, the humans don’t live up to their character’s reputations. While Syd does kill one person, it’s from a distance and does more to move the story forward than it makes sense for the character. These are minor quibbles, but the movie could have risen even further above its exploitative roots with more attention paid to the characters.

“Cocaine Bear” is rated R for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout. There are numerous dismemberments, at least one beheading, people being dragged screaming into bushes and more by the bear. A wrist of a person is broken so badly by the bear the hand is only connected by skin. There is also a stabbing, beatings and shootings by humans. One character is shot in the head with their brains and blood splattering on others in the room. Another character is shot in the belly. Children are shown experimenting with cocaine, but it is entirely for comic effect. The bear is the biggest user in the movie. Foul language is common throughout.

No one will walk away from “Cocaine Bear” with a new outlook on life. It is meant to be an escapist popcorn movie that will only live on in your memory for as long as it takes you to leave the theater and walk to your car. Seeing it with a group of likeminded friends is probably the best way to get the most enjoyment out of it. While the ending may give a small tug on the heartstrings, “Cocaine Bear” is mostly about the gore and the laughs. In that aspect, the film is an acceptable high.

“Cocaine Bear” gets four stars out of five.

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Review of “Long Shot”

Secretary of State Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) has plans to run for President in 2024; however, when former TV actor, President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk), tells Charlotte he plans on leaving office after his first term to act in movies, she moves her ambitions up to 2020. Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) is an investigative journalist whose small liberal Brooklyn-based newspaper has been purchased by conservative billionaire media mogul Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis) and Fred quits his job in protest. Fred’s best friend Lance (O’Shea Jackson) takes him on a night on the town to cheer him up. The wind up at a fund raiser for the World Wildlife Fund where Charlotte is also in attendance. Charlotte and Fred knew each other growing up as they lived next door to each other. Fred had a crush on young Charlotte and even kissed her, leading to an embarrassing reaction. Charlotte and Fred talk briefly where they reconnect over their shared past. Wembley is there and Fred confronts him then falls down a flight of stairs. Charlotte wants to add Fred to her staff as a speech writer, much to the chagrin of her assistant Maggie Millikin (June Diane Raphael) who thinks Fred is too big a risk to her fledgling campaign. As they travel and work together, Fred and Charlotte develop an affection for one another that goes beyond friendship and could derail her presidential ambitions.

“Long Shot” asks a great deal of its audience, namely believing Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are convincing as a romantic couple. While the film takes a few shortcuts to get the pair to fall in love, screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah do a good job of building a world where these two could be a couple. They also include some very funny situations and good jokes to smooth the way.

Charlize Theron is amazing in the movie. She comes across as a legitimate and polished government official and she can be very funny. Theron has proven in “Young Adult,” “Tully” and “Gringo” she has the comedy chops to steal any film from her costars and she does that in “Long Shot.” While Rogen has his moments, Theron is given the best lines and delivers them with gusto. A sex scene where she makes requests that shock Rogen’s Fred is a brilliant bit of role reversal that Theron delivers with the proper amount of lust and intensity, so you believe that’s what she wants, and she means to get it.

Theron also has the gravitas to make the scenes of Charlotte carrying out her duties ring true. Her walking through the halls of the White House, going over the schedule with her aides or dealing with a crisis in another part of the world, reminded me of Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing,” except when she’s tripping on Molly and having to deal with a third world dictator. That’s more like a Rogen comedy than a Sorkin drama. That scene still works because of Theron and her ability to convincingly play a person on drugs holding it together to get past the emergency while trying to convince everyone else she isn’t high. It’s a scene that could have derailed the whole film, but Theron makes us believe Charlotte is capable and experienced enough to pull it off.

Rogen is mostly playing his usual man-child, but the script plays to that strength and makes the character increasingly self-aware. There are actual moments of growth and maturity for Rogen’s Fred as the story progresses. It’s not the kind of performance that will win any awards, but this is one of Seth Rogen’s better performances.

If the movie has an issue, it’s the high-mindedness of Charlotte. Perhaps I’m too cynical when it comes to politicians, but I simply couldn’t believe a decision Charlotte makes near the end of the film. I won’t give it away, but Charlotte chooses a path that is political suicide and does so for love. Actually, that mostly gives it away, but it’s a rom-com, so you know something along that line has to happen. Anyway, Charlotte’s decision is the kind of thing that wouldn’t happen in real life. It especially wouldn’t have the positive outcome as it does in the film. It’s the kind of thing we would hope our leaders would do, but they don’t.

“Long Shot” is rated R for strong sexual content, some drug use and language throughout. Along with the aforementioned sex scene, we see the outcome of a moment of self-pleasure along with discussions of a sexual nature. Fred and Charlotte take Molly, and at a security check point, Fred empties his pockets showing us he’s carrying several drugs. Foul language is common throughout the film.

Seth Rogen is frequently in films where his character is paired with a woman that is, based on looks alone, out of his league. “Knocked Up,” “Neighbors” and its sequel, “The Green Hornet,” and “Like Father” (a Netflix film), all pair Rogen with very attractive women as his love interest. I suppose this is part of the underdog theme that runs through most of his films, showing even the messy schlub can find happiness with a put-together and attractive woman. It’s just another part of the film that stretches credibility to near breaking point, but the script makes this “Beauty and the Beast” scenario work. It’s a minor miracle.

“Long Shot” gets five stars.

It’s a full slate of films opening this week, hoping you’ve seen “Avengers: Endgame” as many times as you can stand and looking for something different to watch. I’ll see and review at least one of the following:

The Hustle—

Pokemon Detective Pikachu—

Poms—

Tolkien—

Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman123@gmail.com.

Review of “Den of Thieves”

Los Angeles is the capital of bank robberies. On this day, it isn’t a bank but an armored car that is the target. A team of robbers led by Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) hits the truck with a precise strike meant to get the group in and out in a short period of time. Unfortunately one of the security guards goes for his gun leading to a shootout that kills all the guards, several cops and one of the robbers; however, the crew gets away with the truck that had no money on board. Investigating the crime is LA Sheriff’s department detective Nick Flanagan (Gerard Butler) and his team from the major crimes squad. His work leads to Donnie (O’Shea Jackson, Jr) as possibly having a connection to the robbers so Nick knocks him out and brings him to a house filled with his squad and some very attractive and scantily-clad women. Sending the women out, Nick questions Donnie, letting him know if they don’t like the answers he will be killed and dumped in the middle of nowhere. Donnie says Merrimen doesn’t tell him much and only uses him as a getaway driver. Nick tells Donnie to keep in touch and tell him what Merrimen is planning next. The cop and the bank robber begin a cat-and-mouse game with millions of dollars at stake and possibly their lives.

“Den of Thieves” is a gritty crime thriller that takes itself very seriously. It is packed with a cast of Alpha Males that strut, grunt and menace their way through a 140 minute movie, jumping from gunfights, robberies and domestic drama with little to no thought about how it will affect the flow of the story. It also has a complicated heist that acts as an anchor to keep everyone involved in roughly the same place even though the cops know the robbers are up to something and robbers know the cops know they’re up to something and it all becomes an intricate ballet that runs on booze and cigarettes. It is also maddeningly stupid.

I love a good crime drama. They work best when they are kept down to earth and focus on the broken characters on both sides of the law with the crime itself being something of an afterthought. “Den of Thieves” tries real hard to break the characters in a way that justifies their actions but only adds to the silliness of the whole film. The most interesting part of the film is the planning and carrying out of the robbery of the Los Angeles Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. It is a massively guarded facility with seemingly impenetrable security and with safeguards in place to keep you from spending any money you might actually get away with. It is a plan that, naturally, requires careful preparation and split-second timing. It is also incredibly dumb and unmanageable in about 100 different ways. Still, it is the best part of the film.

The worst part is Gerard Butler. I felt sorry for him and his portrayal of Nick Flanagan as a hard-drinking, hard-living detective that is so buried in his work he rarely sees his wife and two kids. His acting in this is best described as frantic. He’s constantly angry, agitated and aggravated and all apparently at the same time. He has a couple of scenes where he acts like a human being with emotions and stuff but those are few and far between. Most of the time he’s either sucking on a cigarette and chugging down a beer or beating up a suspect to get him to talk. It’s the kind of performance that is supposed to make the audience feel the character is running on a razor’s edge and could crack at any moment. It actually makes us laugh at the idea anyone would put this lunatic in charge of a law enforcement team. Butler’s performance is so exaggerated and over the top you’ll be rooting for the bank robbers.

Pablo Schreiber is actually very good as Merrimen, the leader of the bank robbers. Perhaps his more controlled performance looks great when compared to Butler’s whirling dervish but I found Schreiber to be a fascinating bad guy and a character that had some real potential. I also enjoyed the performance of O’Shea Jackson as Donnie. He’s caught between two worlds and knows either side will kill him if he slips up. He’s over his head and looks like he’s hoping to just survive long enough to escape his situation. Jackson plays the underdog role for all its worth and you can’t help but hope his character somehow survives and makes a better life for himself.

The story takes a huge twist at the very end with an explanation about how everyone involved has been played for a fool. I appreciated the effort to turn a film that is something of a mess into a surprising mindbender. Sadly, even the twist is something that isn’t handled that well and still requires such a suspension of disbelief that everything has to play out even more perfectly than you initially thought. While it does offer something of a better ending it still doesn’t make up for all the shenanigans that have gone on before.

“Den of Thieves” is rated R for violence, language and some sexuality/nudity. There are some bloody shootings and beatings. There is a scene in a stripper bar and we briefly see some topless women along with bare backsides. Foul language is common throughout.

While it isn’t quite bad enough to be a guilty pleasure, there are a few things in “Den of Thieves” that are enjoyable. While implausible, the heist is pretty fun especially as it is being pulled off. The performances of Pablo Schreiber and O’Shea Jackson, Jr. are highlights. And if you want to see a clinic on what not to do during a leading acting role then watch Gerard Butler. Otherwise this film is utterly forgettable.

“Den of Thieves” gets two stars out of five.

This week the only new movie in wide release is Maze Runner: The Death Cure.

I will be on a trip this week so there will be no review.

Listen to The Fractured Frame wherever you get your podcasts. Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman123@gmail.com.